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The website of the Ohio Secretary of State is being set to "static mode" following a recent series of "security breach" attempts, as well as suspicious packages and a number of death threats sent to the office, according to a press release issued late this afternoon. (Posted in full at end of this article.)

The threats against Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's office come in the wake of a rash of recent burglaries and vandalism at ACORN offices in Massachusetts and Seattle, as well as death threats delivered to a number of their workers following much-hyped media reports of "voter fraud" by the community organization. The attacks against the group escalated following the Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's comments about ACORN "voter fraud" at a recent rally, and his extraordinary allegation that ACORN was "on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy" at last week's Presidential debate.

Notably, there has been no actual evidence of any such "voter fraud" by ACORN, simply allegations by many on the right.

The recent threats against Brunner and her office follow on criticism from state Republicans, who have launched a number of legal suits against her during the final weeks leading up to this November's election...

Brunner's announcement notes the OH SoS website has been temporarily placed into "static mode with limited functionality as a precaution," while an investigation has been launched by her office and state police into the recent threatening incidents.

"Unfortunately, [the attacks on the website are] not the first instance of direct assault on the operations of the Secretary of State's office," the press release states. "In recent weeks, phone lines and e-mail channels have been barraged, even in the business filings section of the office, with menacing messages and even threats of harm or death. Last week, a suspicious package covered with threatening messages and containing an unidentified powder was mailed to the Secretary of State's office via the previous location of the Client Services Center. "

Brunner, a Democrat, has been in a recent series of legal clashes instigated by the Ohio Republican Party and a number of their surrogates. She most recently won a decision at the Supreme Court concerning GOP allegations of fraudulently registered voters in the Buckeye State.

The complete press release from the OH SoS follows below in full...

October 20, 2008

For Immediate Release

Secretary of State Website Temporarily
Taken Down for Security PurposesOhio State Highway Patrol will assist with investigation

Columbus, Ohio - Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced on Monday afternoon that the state website has been set in a static mode with limited functionality as a precaution. The Ohio State Highway Patrol will assist with an investigation of one or more security breaches detected by the Secretary of State.

"Due to security concerns experienced by the Secretary of State's website, full functionality of the website has been suspended to protect the integrity of state records and data. Full functionality will be restored when we are assured that all data has been protected to acceptable levels of security," said Secretary of State Brunner.

"Our focus is and has always been to protect the vote of every eligible Ohio voter from any kind of fraud, be it voter registration fraud, illegal voting or vote suppression. This action has been taken to detect and prosecute any illegal breach of our voting infrastructure to maintain voter confidence," said Secretary Brunner.

Unfortunately, this is not the first instance of direct assault on the operations of the Secretary of State's office. In recent weeks, phone lines and e-mail channels have been barraged, even in the business filings section of the office, with menacing messages and even threats of harm or death. Last week, a suspicious package covered with threatening messages and containing an unidentified powder was mailed to the Secretary of State's office via the previous location of the Client Services Center. These incidents are also under investigation.

The Secretary of State's office will continue to work in the best interest of Ohio voters and the boards of elections as we continue our preparation for a successful election.

-30-

UPDATE 10/21/08, 12:54pm: The OH SoS reports the site is now back online. Press release from this morning follows...

October 21, 2008

For Immediate Release

Secretary of State Website Back OnlineInvestigation Will Continue

Columbus, Ohio - Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner announced Tuesday that the Secretary of State website is back online with some limited functionality and should be fully functional by the end of the day. The Ohio State Highway Patrol will continue to assist with an investigation of a security breach detected Monday by the Secretary of State.

"Our Information Technology department worked through the night to establish the needed security measures to make certain that no information on the website could be compromised," said Secretary of State Brunner.

On Tuesday morning the website was available for customer use with added safeguards to detect any further issues. The Secretary of State's office continues to investigate the breach.

-30-

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I'm not surprised that the Republican criminal element (probably the Rover Boys) would stoop to death threats and even terrorist tactics. Brunner is no Blackwell, and if the Republicans can't steal Ohio, the election will be harder to steal.

Why only the Highway Patrol? I mean isn't this more of a National Security problem?

What the hell was all that frigging money for DHS for? Oh that's right to close down the warehouse's during the "no longer public oversight" count.

What the hell was FISA for? Oh that's right to snoop on the sexual habits of political enemies.

What is all the surveillance for?

What were all the FIOS tap's for?

Investigation Investigation? Are you kidding me!? People are calling and jamming the phones and they can't track that? UCE Email and they can't stop that? Packages have messages and they are still delivered? WTF is going on here!?

So we lost our constitution supposedly for homeland security and the Highway Patrol is the only thing protecting the SOS of Ohio? Are you kidding me!?

Not only should some doors be kicked in and people arrested, some people should be fired if this is the strategy!!! It's basically no strategy for God Sake.

off-topic, but seems fitting nonetheless. day one of early voting in my neck of the woods:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --- Supervisor of Elections, Jerry Holland, says early voting got off to a frustrating start. The Optical Scan Readers at some early polling sites were not working correctly. They were bouncing back ballots, showing an error message. The ballots that were bounced back were then placed in a locked, emergency ballot box.

Congresswoman Corrine Brown was one of the dozens of voters who had problems Monday. She said, "I am very concerned the first ballot wasn't taken. And it took them 25 minutes to fix it." She worries that some votes will not be counted.

Holland says voters can rest assured. Ballots placed in the emergency box were re-scanned after the polls closed at 6pm. And that scan was open to the public.

The faulty machines will be replaced. Holland said, "We're trying to get everything resolved so the next 13 days of early voting goes a lot smoother."

If you visit the site I linked to above ,then vote ,when you cast your vote scroll down to view all the countries listed.
Obama is currently showing 83% out of well over 100,000 votes cast from America (based on IP address) and you can only vote once (based on IP address) .Now that's a poll number with a low "margin of error" .
Spread it around ,email the link to your friends and family ,Dems and Repub the more the better.

Too bad things are getting so ugly. I think, if the repub leadership has any decency at all, they should repudiate the tone of McCain/Palin's campaign and make it a priority to stop the hate before these rightwing ignoramuses orchestrate some serious domestic terrorism.

If Cindy Sheehan wears an anti war t shirt she is dragged out of congress . If Mc cain supporters call for the assasination of a presidential candidate nothing is done to them . It is time for the Democrats and the Obama campaign to get tough and hire their own security force....this latest development in Ohio makes it clear :the brownshirts must be stopped. Those who try to tie up voting lines and prevent legitimate voters from voting should be physically removed from polling places. we must not settle for casting provisional ballots which will never be counted .

As SugarMage reported above, early voting began today. In Hillsborough County (the county containing Tampa) lines were very long at early voting polling places. They tried to blame this on a much larger than anticipated turnout because of the Obama and H. Clinton rally held at Steinbrenner (formerly Legend) Field in Tampa, but later admitted that they had many machine problems. Hillsborough County uses Premier (Diebold) optical scan machines. These are used now for everything. They may still use some sort of DRE for persons with disabilities to comply with HAVA, but I am not certain and the Supervisor of Elections hasn't updated the website to say what equipment is being used. He barely got the optical scan machines deployed in time. His website still describes the equipment they used to use, which was DREs, Sequoia, I think.

According to the the Tampa ABC station, 40,000 people attended the rally. I don't know what the seating capacity of Legend Field actually is, but I suspect that it was full.

We need to take heed of exactly what Naomi Wolf is saying and TAKE IMMEDIATE AND DEFINITIVE ACTION.
If not then enjoy living in a Fascist Police State until the country completely collapses.

The only way Obama can win is if 100% of all democrats and a decent percentage of Rethugs and Independents come out an vote for Obama by an overwhelming margin, he would have to be ahead by a solid 15-20%+.

The ONLY reason to sow the seeds of doubt as to the accuracy of exit polls is that when you steal the election, the exit polls provide the irrefutable proof that you have done so. This demonstrated the media’s complicity in the conspiracy.

The Neocon Express just spent a depressing 3 hours conducting an exit poll at a Las Vegas early voting station. The Location was in a more affluent Western suburb of Las Vegas, on the edge of Summerlin; More specifically, at the Vons shopping center on Rampart, between Charleston and Sahara. It was a glorious day in Las Vegas so what better way to spend a few hours than by hanging outside a polling station and randomly sampling voters, right?

Nevada is a swing state, and the middle to upper middle class suburbs of Las Vegas, like this location, are a crucial indicator of how the state might go. Early voting started at this location yesterday and the lines have been long and non-stop all day, with people waiting in line an average of 45 minutes to cast their votes.

I randomly interviewed over 150 voters after they cast their ballots. I stood outside with a clipboard and certainly looked the part of a pollster. My question went like this: “Hi, I am conducting a quick, random exit poll; of course all participants are anonymous. Was it John McCain or Barack Obama for you?”

I could not possibly have talked to everyone who voted during the three hour time frame but I got a very good random sample. The results were devastating to me.

Let’s get to the results:

Obama: 70%
McCain: 26%
Other 4%

If I calculate the number of people who declined to give an answer, than the breakdown went like this:

Obama 53%
McCain 20%
Other 3%
Declined to participate: 24%.

My gut instinct tells me that the vast majority of those who “declined to participate” were McCain supporters, but of course, I have no way of knowing that for sure.

snip

Anyway, that’s how I spent three hours of my weekend and as a McCain supporter, it was deeply depressing. McCain will need to carry rural and Northern Nevada by a wide margin to overcome what will certainly be a devastating lose in Clark County.

#1) "static mode"? That points to one of two possibilities. Either there is some dynamic content that they really don't want to update or their web programmer/webmaster/database administrator is woefully incompetent. I'm guessing the later. Unless they are being hit by some really good black hats not just script kiddies, there should be no reason to go static. And if they are getting hit by pros, it points to either organized crime or a very dangerous individual. See observation #2.

#2) And, as one of the first posters mentioned, why is the DHS not getting involved? Is attacking a Government website not considered "terrorism" depending on the politics involved?

"The Ohio State Highway Patrol will continue to assist with an investigation of a security breach detected Monday by the Secretary of State."

Seems to me the HIGHWAY PATROL is for HIGHWAYS, not TCPIP/UDP

"Our Information Technology department worked through the night to establish the needed security measures to make certain that no information on the website could be compromised," said Secretary of State Brunner.

On Tuesday morning the website was available for customer use with added safeguards to detect any further issues. The Secretary of State's office continues to investigate the breach.